A recent
study in the journal Scienceshows
that the shrinkage of glaciers will cause a lack in water sources for
crops, ultimately leading to food shortages for approximately 60
million people living near the Himalayas. This study is one of the
first to observe the effect melting glaciers have on the Himalayan
river basins, and could possibly further provoke the existing debate
that climate change will destroy river basins located mostly in
Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, China and Bhutan.

Dutch
scientists Marc Bierkens, Walter Immerzee and Ludovicus Van Beek –
who conducted the study and wrote in the journal -- concluded that
basins around the Himalayas such as the Indus, Ganges and
Brahamaputra depend on the melting
glaciers to water their crops, and could see a 19.6 percent
decline in their water supply by 2050.

"We
estimate that the food security of 4.5 percent of the total
population will be threatened as a result of reduced water
availability," the researchers wrote. "The strong need for
prioritizing adaptation options and further increasing water
productivity is therefore eminent."

This
new study largely contrasts the U.N. report in 2007, where the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change estimated that hundreds of millions of
people were in danger from the receding glaciers. According to the
scientists, the reason for the "discrepancy" is that only
some basins in this area depend on the glaciers. Others, such as
China's Yellow River basin, obtain their water from rainfall and are
expected to see a 9.5 percent increase in water supply due to the
changing climate altering the pattern of monsoons.

"We
show that it's only certain areas that will be affected," said
Bierkens. "The amount of people affected is still large. Every
person is one too many but it's much less than was first
anticipated."

In
addition, the U.N. report included other errors such as the Himalayas
disappearing by 2035, when actual data indicates that this will
happen by 2350. Client
change skeptics attacked this inaccuracy, which in fact, was
just a mistake in transposing the numbers.

Most
scientists agree that "glaciers are melting at an accelerated
rate as
temperatures increase," and that the reason is related to
the higher "atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such
as carbon dioxide." Evidence for this appears in the
considerable losses seen in glaciers across the Andes, Alaska, the
Alps and several other ranges. According to researchers in the United
States and Europe, "more than 90 percent of glaciers worldwide
are in retreat."

Researchers
who did not take part in the study, such as Zhongqin Li, director of
the Tianshan Glaciological Station in China, noted that the
scientists performing the study disregarded many other basins in
central Asia and northwest China which
will be affected by the glacial losses. Other glacial experts and
scientists warned that "uncertainties and lack of data for the
region makes it difficult to say what will happen in the next few
decades to the water supply." While many researchers are
skeptical of exact numbers in the study, they do agree that
there should
be a concern for those living in the glacial-dependent
basins due to climate change. In addition, problems like pollution,
overpopulation and poverty are added stress to the situation.

"The
paper teaches us that there's a lot of uncertainty in the future
water supply of Asia and within the realm of plausibility are
scenarios that may give us concern," said Casey Brown, an
assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the
University of Massachusetts.

"At
present, we know that water concerns are already a certainty - the
large and growing populations and high dependence on irrigated
agriculture which makes the region vulnerable to present climate
variability.

"This
paper is additional motivation to address these present concerns
through wise investments in better management of water
resources in the region, which for me means forecasts,
incentives, efficiency."

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

Nope. Raf believes that scientific majority = population majority. So good luck convincing him that most American's actually CAN make their own opinions on something once they are informed enough about it.

Climategate opened our eyes, and confirmed a lot of suspicions. These aren't good men and women just doing a job. These are people HIGHLY motivated to push an agenda.

Now the media and several sources, based on East Anglia's own laughable "investigation", would like you to believe the "science was solid" but the people doing the science were flawed. I mean, honestly, who's buying that??

The beauty of the internet. The masses in western civilization have more information at their fingertips then world leaders and thinkers of less then 100 years ago.

Regardless, the scientific majority only appears to agree on the fact that the world is warming up. Jury seems to be out on cause and effect. Or even if such warming will hurt us or be benifitial. Afterall, warming trends have meant massive growth for our planet in the past.

AFAICT, almost every generation in human history have had one (or more) prophecy of doom. We all yearn to be the logical conclusion to a long history, so we celebrate rapture, ragnarok, y2k, 2012 and whatnot because surely our generation is the one that makes a difference. We're important, and that means the world must end now.

The hypothesis of man-made global warming fits neatly into the pattern of a good decent doomsday prophecy. Fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Meanwhile, our planet is already a very crowded place. We have resorted to all sorts of tricks to increase crop yields, slowly poisoning everyone of us (including animals). Heck, some of us have tried to fuel our cars on sugar canes, and immediately someone starts complaining that the price of wheat started climbing. The price of wheat hit a record low in the late 80s and the US, Russia and EU have all paid farmers to stop growing anything. Yet when the price starts to pick up slightly, people panic.

Seeing the whole picture is a difficult task. The simple truth is probably what someone summed up in the question "what is better? 10 millions starve now, or 3 billions 10 years from now?". The more people we save now, the more people will need saving down the road. The human population breed like rats, and the Catholic ban on birth control (and abortion for that matter) is not helping.

What science tells us is that Greenland is named Greenland for a reason. The vikings farmed a large portion of Greenland in locations that are still covered with a thick layer of ice. We are emerging from a mini-iceage, and our society is not set up for the kind of migrations our forefathers had to endure.

The CO2 taxation won't work. Without CO2 there would be no life on this planet. Rather than focus on particle emissions that cause real (and sometimes irreperable) damage, our politicians are singeling out the one emission that occur naturally. I am not impressed. Initially I had hoped that the Kyoto agreement would lead to at least some discussion about e.g. NOx emissions, but our elected leaders are acting like headless chickens.